Compare and contrast the findings from empirical studies on emotional Essay

Compare and contrast the findings from empirical studies on emotional labor in two different jobs (nurses and stewardesses) - Essay Example Another part of this part of it is the ability to put one’s own feelings aside, and deal professionally with events and circumstances which are difficult, for example dealing with difficult people or facing danger, injury or even trauma and violence. There are some professions, such as nursing and air stewarding which are recognized as requiring a considerable amount of emotional labor. The evidence from recent scholarship shows that despite equality legislation, the emotional labor of nursing and air stewarding is consistently valued less than other kinds of labor, and that this is related to the association which these two professions have as â€Å"women’s work.† Montgomery et al. (2005) examine the emotional labor issue in a sample of 180 doctors and 84 nurses in the context of Greece. The method of investigation used was questionnaires, and the researchers looked for indicators such as hiding negative emotions at work and surface acting at work. The study con cludes that in the case of doctors there was spill-over from work to family, while in the nurses there was spill-over from family to work. Both groups were required to perform emotional labor, but this occurred at mainly home for the nurses and at mainly at work for the doctors. The authors acknowledge that the study has limitations, most notably the self-selection element in the way that the sample was derived and possible variations in the degree to which individuals identify with their job role which were not measured. Elements of status and gender were touched upon, but not fully explored and this too, may render the conclusions somewhat suspect. A more in-depth analysis was conducted by Henderson (2001) who looked at 49 nurses from Canada and the United Kingdom who were involved in the care of abused women. The research methods used were individual interview and focus groups of 6-9 nurses. Nurses agreed with the view that they perform this emotional labor of caring in a society which both demands such labor and at the same time refuses to value it properly. The findings show that nurses are very adept at managing professional involvement and professional detachment in their working lives, but that they learn this skill on the job rather than in their training at college. In short, they felt that their education had not prepared them at all for the emotional labor that they found themselves delivering when they started their careers in hospitals. The author perceived this, however, as a matter of learning the theory first, and not realizing its deeper meaning until the opportunity arises to use the theory in practice. The nurses reported low status in the workplace, and perceived this as being directly linked to the old-fashioned view that nursing is â€Å"women’s work† and therefore inferior to other professions. This finding matches the findings of the Montgomery et al. study. In the case of air stewards, and particularly stewardesses, thes e same themes of low status and association with â€Å"women’s work† occur in a study by Chang and Chiu (2009) which used a questionnaire to explore the feelings of 353 Taiwanese flight attendants on this topic. The results indicated that female cabin crew face relatively high stress levels which contributes in some cases to exhaustion in the long run. Working conditions are cramped, with little opportunity for rest, schedules are unpredictable, and stewardesses are in the front line of company objectives to improve service quality. Despite these pressures, high levels